


Unwanted Responsibility

by TheFreakWithTheWings



Series: Randomized Reincarnation [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Iwagakure | Hidden Stone Village, Nonchronological Story Progression, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25917904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFreakWithTheWings/pseuds/TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: In the wake of Namikaze's massacre, Makoto's wedding was canceled.
Series: Randomized Reincarnation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847188
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my newest story. Before you read further, a warning: I don't know if this is ever going to be finished. It's one of the six fanfic ideas that I'm slowly chipping away at when I'm not working on my original work. I currently have three chapters written and plan to post one a week. Being a college grad means I have more time to write, but being an essential employee means that it isn't very much more than it was. Also, constructive criticism will be allowed as long as it follows the form of 1) one thing you liked, 2) one thing you didn't like, and 3) any emotions that you felt while reading, with a limit to one criticism per chapter. Any criticism that doesn't follow these relatively simple guidelines will probably be deleted. With all that said, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

In the wake of Namikaze's massacre, Makoto's wedding was canceled. It would have been a little difficult to go through with it when so many members of the wedding party, bridegroom included, were dead. That wasn't even getting into the scheduling nightmare of finding a religious official to hold the ceremony if her parents tried to get her to marry one of her late fiance's relatives, as funerals had all of the religious leaders in Iwa- no matter their religion- booked solid for more than a month.

Makoto wasn't too sad about losing her fiance, as it had been an arranged marriage, and he was a huge jerk. She was too busy mourning two of her older brothers and trying to keep on top of things at the library for that.

Her assignment to the library had been the result of a careful balancing act: doing well enough in the Academy to become a genin, but not good enough to be assigned a jonin instructor, then being talented enough at fuinjutsu and organization to get assigned to the library, but not so talented that she got shunted into either Intelligence or the Fuinjutsu Corp. In hindsight, Makoto had probably only succeeded because Iwa had enough people that putting someone where they were unsuited wasn't necessary.

This was all to say that the third great change that was caused by the massacre was one that ruined a good thirteen years of preparations and planning by promoting Makoto from her comfortable, low stress position as a junior librarian to what was, in her opinion, practically the worst job that a genin was qualified for: administrative assistant to the Tsuchikage. Okay, so, in this world, they still called it a secretary, but it was the same thing.

Turning up to the first day at a new job was always a nerve wracking experience. Turning up to the first day at a new job with basically zero training or qualifications for the position was a million times worse. The previous secretary, an unassuming brunet whose name she didn't know, welcomed her from behind a simple wooden desk outside the Tsuchikage's office.

"This will probably be temporary," was the first thing he said after his greeting. "Hopefully, we can get enough people through the Academy to start filling in some of the gaps soon enough, but for now, all you need to do is keep people from getting through the Tsuchikage's door. If they ask for an appointment, you get down their name, rank, and registration number. At the end of the day, you put the list in this drawer," he unlocked a simple seal and opened the top drawer, already brimming with loose papers and scrolls. "And if Onoki ever asks for the list, then you just give him the whole drawer."

"Does he ever ask?"

"Nah, most issues get brought up in the Council meetings, which you'll need to take notes for, and the jonin commander will usually come through at least once a week to take care of these instead. If Onoki ever does get around to looking through this drawer, then that means he's got free time on his hands, and nobody likes that." the man explained.

Makoto didn't ask.

"You probably won't be seeing anything else until you get your combat skills up to scratch, so I'll leave you to it."

"Wait, where will you be?" Makoto asked.

The man waved a hand through the air. "I'm getting moved over to the Academy until there's either a replacement secretary with sufficient clearance level or a replacement teacher. Good luck, try not to stab anyone on the first day."

And that was all she was taught about how to do her job. Within about five seconds of being abandoned at her new desk, Makoto could feel the beginnings of a panic attack creeping at the edges of her mind. To distract herself, Makoto pulled out one of the shitty porn novels that came out of the Land of Fire and began a reread. By the time someone actually approached her, Makoto was so upset about the fact that the author seemed to know nothing about female anatomy or even how to write a human woman that she was able to pull on her best customer service smile from past life experience working retail, and get to work.

Sadly, preventing people from reaching the Tsuchikage was actually the bare minimum of what Makoto had to do. Taking notes in meetings, making food and coffee for a perpetually tired village leader, sending out and receiving reports- there was a lot. Her previous occupation as a librarian meant that she actually had a pretty high clearance level, relative to most shinobi, and so Makoto was cleared to see pretty much everything that crossed the Tsuchikage's desk, except for the reports from S-ranked missions and black ops. Installing an actually functioning organizational system, since her predecessor seemed to prefer just shoving things into drawers and then forgetting about them, was one of the first projects that she tackled. It was tedious in the extreme, but at least no one pulled any weapons on her while she was working through the paperwork.

The first time one of the shinobi who wanted to get in to see the Tsuchikage pulled out a kunai, Makoto kept a frightened eye on him for the rest of his visit. By the tenth time it happened, though, Makoto was getting used to the feeling of killing intent being directed at her. After all, what sort of idiot would actually harm the secretary of the Tsuchikage when all that would get them is imprisoned for treason instead of an appointment?

So maybe she had needed to point that out to a few of the slower witted chunin, but it was fine. Makoto was absolutely fine.

By the time the last funeral came around, Makoto was feeling such a potent cocktail of emotions- relief that she no longer had to marry an asshole, grief for her two older brothers, and stress from learning the ropes of wrangling a village leader and S-class shinobi with minimal training or guidance- that she fell into a crying jag the likes of which hadn't happened since she'd gone and confessed the whole reincarnation thing to her parents.

Onoki, who had started throwing things at her whenever she used -sama, had laughed, told her to take the day off, and then locked her out of the office for an entire day. It was the first time Makoto felt anything even resembling a positive emotion towards the Tsuchikage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the nonchronological storytelling starts to be a big part of the story.

5 years previously

Murdering comrades was frowned upon, Makoto repeated over and over again in her head. She could not kill anyone here, no matter how much she wanted to.

Instead, she fisted her thirteen year old hands in the sleeves of her kimono, resisted the urge to scratch the new zit in the crease of her nose because puberty was just wonderful like that, and daydreamed about the various ways she might be allowed to maim boys with less sense and compassion than a particularly hungry spider. Although, in that comparison, then Makoto would be the fly, and she was feeling way too vicious for that. Puberty this time around seemed to be trending along the same lines as her last life: pimples, bloodlust, and boobs too large for her frame. The boobs encouraged men to approach her, which only kicked up the bloodlust even higher, and the stress of not commiting violence against the men who eyed her like she was something to eat gave her pimples. In her last, nonviolent life, the bloodlust had only faded in her early twenties, but in this violent, militaristic society it would be hard to say if the curling desire to do violence to anyone who even vaguely looked at her strangely would ever go away.

Her parents had taken the excuse of her suddenly having breasts to begin talks for a marriage with the Takenaka family. Right now, they were discussing the minimum number of children that Makoto would be required to provide, a subject that made her want to dig out her uterus with the nearest available kunai. Maybe she could just castrate her future fiance instead?

After the official meeting was over and the contract was drawn up and legalized, Makoto was set loose and encouraged to familiarize herself with her new betrothed under the somewhat distant gaze of her parents. All she knew about him was that he was two years older than her, an asshole, and also keeping her from getting in her reading time. Just because fiction in this life wasn't up to the same quality as it was in her last didn't mean the Makoto was willing to give up her reading time. Besides, she had plans to increase the quality of fiction, sweet, devious plans that were only sort of illegal if you tilted your head to the side and squinted.

All of this meant that Takenaka Hiroki was just about the worst person in the entirety of Makoto's world right now, even if he didn't know it. 

"So, are you excited to have lots of kids?" Hiroki asked, dark eyes glued to the swell of her kimono over her breasts. "Girls like kids, right?"

Makoto's jaw was clenched too tightly to answer. She would dearly like to blacken at least one of his eyes, maybe give him a broken nose to accompany it. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest, doing her best to block out his view and shot him a frosty glare.

"My father said that you would have to give up your career to stay home," he continued. "But that's alright, since you're only a genin."

Teenagers are idiots who can be taught better, Makoto reminded herself. Still, that didn't mean she wanted to be the one to teach him to fix his act.

"I don't think I care what your father thinks; I worked hard to get assigned to the library," Makoto gritted out. "Besides, the Tsuchikage isn't one to waste resources, and the whole reason for our betrothal is my fuinjutsu skills."

Hiroki snorted. "Yeah, but anyone can learn how to draw some fancy symbols on a piece of paper and make it go boom. _I'm_ the one with special training and a future career track to jonin, so I'll make enough money to make sure you don't have to work."

He was so damn lucky that her mother had confiscated all of her weapons before this meeting and that his mother's bloodline meant that killing him would be considered treason. Otherwise, Makoto might just contemplate it for the quality of Iwa's gene pool.

Murdering comrades was frowned on, Makoto repeated again. No matter how much better off the world would be without him in it, too many people would suspect her of being the murderer.

"Whatever, that stuff doesn't matter. Wanna take a walk, maybe get out form under the eyes of our parents?"

The sly glint in his eyes told Makoto exactly why he wanted to go somewhere alone with her, and she wasn't having it.

"No."

"Aw, why not?" he asked, pouting like the whiny little infantile asshole he was.

"No is a full sentence. I don't need to explain myself to you," Makoto growled.

Hiroki raised his hands in the air and made an expression as if he was taken aback, as if she had been the one who overreacted. "Sheesh, it was just a question, no need to bite my head off."

Makoto didn't even deign to grace him with a response to that nonsense.

The asshole obviously didn't get the hint, though, because the very next thing he did was wrap his arm around her shoulders, leaned in close to her ear, and said "Not gonna lie, it was kind of hot, though."

Makoto figured that the best response to that load of shit was to whip her head around and sink her teeth deep enough into his arm to draw blood. If he hadn't wanted her to bite him, then maybe he should have worn a long sleeved shirt. Or maybe, she thought vindictively as Hiroki began to screech, he shouldn't have made the biting comment. Really, he was just asking for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone offers critique on the dialogue, I have had almost this exact interaction with a few different men. I've pared it down to make the story flow better and also because Makoto has more experience with this while irl there were a lot more awkward silences as I tried to figure out how to respond. Yes, even the biting is from my experiences, although I warned the guy before hand what would happen if he kept pushing that line of conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

13 years previously

In her first life, Makoto had been something of an awkward child, almost but not quite a social outcast only because she didn't care what other people thought and could get along with most people fairly well. In this life, though, she had decided that she was going to go for the outcast status. No one would want to play with her, no one would feel it was worth the effort to bully her, and she wouldn't have to pretend to be an actual child. Small children were fragile and terrifying and disgusting and had the same range from empathic to psychopathic that most adults did but were so much worse at hiding it. If it wasn't a government mandate that each child had to go to the Shinobi Academy save for a debilitating medical condition, then Makoto wouldn't have put up with it.

Also, the one time she had tried to set off on her own for a great adventure a person with actual superpowers had practically teleported her back to her house. Since this place was supposed to teach people how to use their own superpowers, Makoto hadn't been too disappointed about her forced attendance.

If only they would get around to some actual instruction about the superpowers, instead of this propaganda disguised as philosophy.

The teacher's light pink eyes were practically lit up as she rhapsodized "The Will of Stone is what each Shinobi of our proud nation keeps in their heart, a solemn vow that they will not be moved by anything, not even death, for it is the highest honor to sacrifice your life for Iwa so long as you hold strong to the Will of Stone."

She went on for several minutes in that manner, even though about half of the class seemed to be struggling to follow along.

The whole situation sort of reminded Makoto of a World War 1 poem she'd studied back when she was sixteen. It went something along the lines of 'what a great lie 'dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' is, because there is nothing sweet or honorable about dying for one's country.' English teachers had a strange tendency to assign giant essays on how to interpret individual lines of text while also teaching some valuable life lessons. It was probably one of the hazards of reading though; sooner or later you're going to come to all sorts of conclusions about human nature.

It had been four years since Makoto had last read anything. Even now, she still didn't know every single character- katakana or kanji or hiragana. Even more than the superpowers, Makoto looked forwards to learning how to read the language here. Her ability to sufficiently communicate, to transfigure her ideas from pure thought to something legible to others, was at a peak of what she could reach on her own. Her parents were busy- civilians had to work twice as hard as shinobi for societal acceptance in Iwa- and so suffering through school was the only option.

Maybe she could analyze the propaganda as a critical thinking exercise? Actually, that sounded like a lot of work, and potentially treason if anyone figured out that she was doing it. Maybe she could use this time to plot out some stories? They would never be fully fleshed out until she had enough words under her belt to bring them to life, but it had to be more fun than sitting and listening to government sponsored brainwashing all day.

Staring blankly into the grass green hair of the person sitting in front of her- it was a similar shade to her own hair and probably meant they were cousins- and lost in imaginings of the adventures of a pirate queen and the mermaid who loved her, Makoto didn't even notice when the teacher switched over from propaganda to math. She briefly surfaced when the teacher started calling on students to answer the math problems, but since it was only one digit addition she went back to contemplating the merits of a love triangle versus polyamory via an unexpected betrothal that was only discovered after the pirate queen's secret identity as the long lost orphan princess was revealed. Did she want the pirate queen to be bisexual? Oh, maybe the duke's son could be asexual and also more interested in studying magic than governing a kingdom, and all three of them have a happy romantic relationship. The duke might provide a source of tension since he had IdeasTM on how to run a kingdom, but the princess used to run a whole fleet of pirate ships. The only reason she wouldn't have made him walk the plank is because she valued her good relationship with her husband.

Makoto cackled out loud, too excited about her plotting to keep it to herself.

"Did you know the answer to the question, Sato Makoto?" the teacher asked, eyebrows raised.

Makoto squinted at the question on the chalkboard, spending more time figuring out what numbers were being added together than actually solving the problem. "It's ten."

"And you didn't even need to use your fingers. Very good," the teacher said.

Makoto smiled awkwardly and resolved to be a little bit quieter about her story planning in the future.


	4. Chapter 4

Present Day

The first day Makoto had decided to tackle the project of organizing the paperwork that she handled, the actual idea of finishing up the project was laughable. Literally. Her predecessor had laughed in her face when she mentioned it to him, the prick.

But, like any project that seemed insurmountable, it was actually simple enough if she broke it up into small enough steps. The first method of sorting that Makoto decided to implement was sorting by department. Education, Medical, Investigation, Administration, Torture and Interrogation, etc. It was a little bit difficult because some departments had originally started off as one department, such as Sabotage, but ended up getting split into the Explosion Corp and ANBU, but it was fine. Those issues could be tackled better once she had a functioning example of why organization was important, as that would allow her to bring her project before the Tsuchikage and ask for more workers to help.

Maybe it could be even made into a mission- probably a C rank just from the security clearance needed and also the danger of going insane from boredom.

To that end, Makoto had picked the one department that had been in consistent use since the founding of the village to focus on: Torture and Interrogation.

Progress was slow, but steady for the first month after her breakdown, with Makoto grabbing any free moments she had to work on her project rather than reading or doing anything else. Of course, that wasn't going to last with a Hidden village on the verge of collapse from how many people had died.

Onoki rarely got to work before Makoto did, so it wasn't too shocking for him to come in an hour after she did. It was a little bit odd, but not worth commenting on, not like the little blond kid who was shadowing him. The boy couldn't have been more than five years old.

Onoki didn't introduce the kid, so Makoto simply handed him breakfast and the stack of reports that had come in from the mission desk and got back to work, ignoring any loud noises that might be happening behind her desk. There was only a door separating them, so if the Tsuchikage wanted it to be her business, then he already would have told her about it. As it was, since there was no one around, Makoto got right back to reading a report on the intelligence from prisoners taken during the Second Shinobi War.

It was gruesome reading, to be sure - the stuff of nightmares from her last life and definitely something that would make her never want to even think about betraying Iwa for fear of ending up in the hands of the T and I's finest, but something about it was definitely not quite right. The report was detailing an interrogation on one of the seals looted from Uzushiogakure's library in the aftermath of the attack. From how the activation was described- _a blinding pillar of light that reached towards the clouds and then vanished moments later-_ it sounded like some sort of flash bang, but the effect- _all shinobi within the light vanished_ \- didn't match that. The prisoner had described it as an experimental explosive seal, something that needed careful handling or else it would consume anyone within a certain radius of activation.

However, part of the drudge work that was assigned to new librarians was sorting through any paper records looted from the battlefield, which included seal work. Makoto had definitely seen the exact seal referenced in the report, and none of the symbols that made up the seal had anything to do with explosions. Even the symbol used for light used in the seal had different connotations than the standard light symbol found in explosive seals. In fact, if she was remembering correctly, it had almost looked like a modification of a-

The door to the Tsuchikage's office slammed open, and the little boy stormed out, his face a vibrant red.

"You don't know anything, old man!" he yelled, before he turned and saw Makoto staring at him, one eyebrow raised. His bright blue glare suddenly became wary as he stared at her. "What are you looking at, un?"

"Just wondering what you're doing out of the Academy," Makoto said, shrugging one shoulder as if she didn't really care about the answer. With how prickly the boy was, anyone showing too much of an interest would just attract his ire.

The little boy crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "The old man said I was gonna be his apprentice now, but I don't wanna. Just cause," Tears started to gather at the corners of the boy's eyes before he rubbed them away. "Just cause most of my family is- is- is dead doesn't mean anything. I can figure out my art by myself, un!"

"Art, huh?" Makoto asked, choosing to focus on that over anything else he had said. Dealing with grieving kids wasn't anything she was very good at. "What sort of art do you do?"

"Explosions, un!" he exclaimed, beaming.

Before she could ask any questions about that explanation, the door to Onoki's office banged open again.

"Get back in here, brat, and stop bothering my secretary!" Onoki yelled.

The little boy puffed out his cheeks and glared, but he still stomped back into the office, leaving Makoto feeling a little like the ground beneath her feet wasn't as steady as she had previously thought.


End file.
